Page 35 of Destined For Her Alien Daddy

I feel the corner of my mouth move. “How tragic for you.”

“Devastating.”

Something eases between us.

Not the bond. That remains, deep and dangerous. But something of our own making appears beside it, fragile and unexpected. We are not agreeing. We are not trusting, not yet. But for the first time, I can see the outline of the person behind her defenses, and she seems to see something behind mine.

That frightens me more than her recklessness.

My wrist comm shrills.

The sound cuts through the moment with surgical cruelty.

I answer immediately. “Ghar.”

Pell’s voice comes through strained and fast. “We have a missing crew member.”

Anita’s face goes pale.

I stand. “Who?”

“Rennik Vos. Survey assistant. He logged entry near lower chamber access thirteen minutes ago and hasn’t responded to comms.”

Anita rises with me. “Lower chamber where?”

Pell hesitates.

My blood already knows the answer.

“Near C-9,” he says.

Across the mess module, conversations falter as people notice our movement. Brakk’s ears flatten. Sira turns her luminous gaze toward the western terraces beyond the window.

Anita reaches for her field coat.

“No,” I say.

She looks at me with fear and fury fighting in her eyes. “Do not even start.”

“This is now a security operation.”

“And that missing man may be standing beside inscriptions you cannot read, traps you cannot identify, or a door he accidentally opened because none of you understand the site’s symbolic logic.”

“He may also be dead.”

Her face grows severe. “Then we had better find out before whatever killed him gets bored.”

I should refuse.

I should lock the site down.

I should keep her behind reinforced walls until I know what waits beneath us.

Instead, the bond pulses once, brutal and useless, and beneath it something chosen answers in my own voice.

“You stay behind me,” I say.

Anita grabs her scanner from the table. “I am not promising that.”